Second Time Around: Kashmir
by SillyDragon09
Summary: The events of Oct. 1997 from an ensoled Spike's perspective. This is a sequel to School Hard.Story 2 in the series!


_Oh let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream  
I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been  
To sit with elders of the gentle race, this world has seldom seen  
They talk of days for which they sit and wait and all will be revealed_ _-Kashmir by Led Zeppelin_ Prologue 

**The Fight: October 29th 1997**

Cell Phone:_Briiiing._

Spike:'ello?

Background:_Drusilla shrieking & china breaking_

Angel:Miss Edith won't come to the fucking tea party.

Spike:Language, Peaches! Did you put out biscuits and sweet cakes like I said? She likes those expensive Danish ones. Cheap stuff won't do.

Angel:_Yes_. I did exactly like to you said, and she's still pitching a tantrum!

Background:_More screaming, more china breaking._

Angel: What do I do now?

Spike:Jesus, Angel, you can't manage a bleeding doll that's less then two feet tall? Pull yourself together man! You used to be the Bloody Soddin' Scourge of Europe!

Angel:She's pulling out her hair!

Spike:Don't panic! Sing!

Angel:What?

Spike:Fuck, Angel, **sing. Now**. Anything. Don't matter what. Just sing.

Angel:_Well you came and you gave without taking but I sent you away, oh Mannnnnndy. Well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking. I need you today, oh Mannnnndy._

"Sod all, it's like listening to Ozik demons matin'," Spike muttered, holding the cell phone away from his ear, turning his face to the side. The screaming and porcelain breaking noises ceased, though, and Drusilla had been reduced to plaintive whimpering.

"Just hang in there, alright? I'm almost there," Spike said, feeling a twinge of pity. Soulful Angel's always been a throw-himself-to-the-lions sort of sap, and his devotion to Drusilla is measured in hundreds of miles of guilt. But Spike knows what it means to play nursemaid to Dru, and understands the toil and the drain on one's psyche.

Intent on his conversation, Spike walked right into the punch that lifted him off his feet and left him decked on the asphalt. The cell phone sailed off into the night. Angel's singing stopped. _Small blessings_.

"How _dare_ you mess with my mother!" Pure Slayer Outrage fueled the demand. Buffy's round kick caught his jaw, knocking his head back into the pavement. One minute, he'd been walking along minding his own business. Next minute, he had a royally brassed off Slayer pounding his face into a pulp.

"You're scum! Scum taking advantage of a vulnerable, frustrated older woman w-w-with the sick perversions and the-the orgies!"

"WHAT?" Spike thundered, aghast. Buffy thought that he and _Joyce?_ "NO! No taking advantage! No sick perversions! No orgies!"

"My mom is almost menopausal, and here you're-you're!" The Slayer is sputtering mad and unable to finish whatever she was trying to accuse him of, so she hit him again, leaving Spike with a split lip and a mouthful of blood.

"OW, FUCK! Slayer you have a dirty mind!"

* * *

**Comfort Creatures: September 30th thru October 13th, 1997**

"Place needs a woman's touch," Spike said during a walk through of the factory to determine what they'd need in the way of furniture.

"Some curtains and throw pillows and it won't be half bad," Angel said, standing with his hands on his hips, inspecting the battered old couch that the former inhabitants had been using in their makeshift living room. There was a black leather armchair, a small stand and TV, and a braided red rug.

"I think I can do something with it," Angel continued.

"Isn't that what I just said, Peaches?" Spike demanded, swiveling toward gramps with a pointed arch of his brow. Angel glared and cuffed Spike on the back of the head. A casual scuffle ensued.

The next week was a busy blur of nesting. So long as Drusilla was with one of them then they removed her chains. Her illness left her weak as a kitten, unable to get into any trouble or threaten innocents. Drusilla stoped screaming every time one of them walked into the room though she was still prone to bouts of uncontrollable sobbing and hysteria.

Angel and Spike spoke occasionally, but about nothing of consequence. "How long have you and Dru been broken up in your alterna-verse?" Angel asked cautiously. Angel kept stealing with sideways glances at the blonde, a million questions in his puppy dog brown eyes, when Spike supposedly isn't noticing. The old man's curiosity is burning him alive.

Spike actually had to stop and think. Count. "Six years give or take."

"My Knight no longer loves his Princess," Drusilla informed them with a breathy moan. "Another's taken my place in his heart. Wicked White Queen. It is an abomination." Spike's soul offends Drusilla in ways that even Angel's doesn't, and Spike can't say that he blames her.

"And how long have you had a soul for?" Angel asked as if she hadn't spoken, though he casts Dru a visibly disturbed glance. The old man seemed to be expecting the two answers to be identical.

"Almost two years now."

Angel performed a double take. "Two?" The old man is aghast. "Two? You're kidding? I figured it'd been a least ten."

"Just two," Spike said.

Angel stared. "How? At two years I was..."

"A gibbering idiot?"

"Still traumatized," Angel concluded, glaring.

"I stay focused on self-betterment," Spike said, and not without a whole lot of smugness, though he made a sincere effort not to rub Angel's face in it. Because again, there is ribbing between mates, and then there are the things that hit you where you live. Spike doesn't want to humiliate the old man, and maybe, just maybe, Angel can learn something from him.

"Try wallowing less," Spike suggested. "Strive to live each day as a better man, and let the past be the past. It'd do you some good." He turned and walked away without waiting for Angel's reply.

Spike was right about Angel's latent feminine touch. Angel does the place up right pretty with curtains heavy enough to keep out sunlight and cushy throw pillows. Spike and Dru pile onto opposite ends of the couch like siblings who don't want to catch one another's cooties. Angel stretches out in his big leather armchair with his books, barely paying attention to the old reruns of game shows and soaps that drone on through the hours of the long afternoons as they doze off and on.

Another week passed, and little rituals emerge, many based upon old habits of a century more past, but without the bloody violence. Drusilla in particular is drawn to "her angel", and it seems to Spike that she is more comfortable around the vampire whose soul is cursed and not gifted. Perhaps she senses the potential for its removal. Angel's soul is tacked onto the demon like a Post-it note whereas Spike's is an integral part of his being.

Spike and Angel bicker because they have no other mode of communication. Without their insults and their arguments they wouldn't know what to say. Angel stares at Spike for indeterminate hours, regarding the blonde vampire as though a Pod!Person has taken his place. When Angel makes a tentative inquiry, Pod!Spike refuses to discuss the acquisition of his soul.

"I'll talk about it when I'm ready. Don't push." The combined sense of desperation and despair in Spike's eyes must've communicated itself, because Angel doesn't ask again. He just looks at Spike with combined pity and pain, and then goes back to his book.

Angel hasn't told Buffy about them. Dru and Spike are his dirty little secret. The old man maintains two residences, and often goes out at night, disappearing for hours at a time. He returns, sometimes smelling of slayer, and one time covered in reptile stink. Spike stares but doesn't ask.

Time moves forward. It is inevitable.

Spike is bored. Sunnydale the Second Coming has him in a blue funk like nobody's business. So far Angel has been supplying the money for blood for the three of them. But with the anal tightwad controlling the currency, Spike didn't have the cash for booze, smokes, or Cheetos. He's gone without before, but the added burden of Drusilla's tormented episodes and Angel's stoic brooding have him fit to be tied.

Hell, it took a whole lot of wheedling to convince old Scrooge that cell phones are: "The wave of the future. Everyone's got them: Twelve-year-olds, little old ladies, soccer moms. Hell, even you have one."

Angel only grudgingly shelled out the money for two of the 1997 models, which are clunky, outrageously expensive, and get terrible coverage. It takes Angel hours of coaxing to figure out the basics of cell phone operation. It's a terrible thing, watching an anachronism try to claw his way into the 20th Century. Spike is determined to haul Angel's arse there _pronto. _The next is only three years away.

The first rainy day of the season arrived early that October. The darkness and the humidity mingled with the lethargy of late afternoon. TV off, Angel slouched in the leather father-chair, reading aloud from Conrad's Heart of Darkness, weaving black magic with his voice. Drusilla crawled into Daddy's lap, and Spike joined them, sitting on the floor at their feet. Sleepy, Spike leaned against Angel's leg, his head in Dru's lap, while she stroked his hair.

Hours passed, and the weakened Drusilla fell asleep, and the fingers in Spike's hair stilled. He also drifted off with the breathy timbre of Angel's voice filling up his consciousness, and when he awakened there were fingers stroking his hair.

However, those fingers are not slender and tapered, but thick and strong. Sans gel, Spike's hair forms a loose crown of cashmere soft blonde curls falling in silken swirls, which Angel caresses and combs through over and over. Spike's face isn't so far from the old man's crotch, and the stink of arousal wafts into his quivering nostrils.

Feigning sleep, Spike remains still for long minutes while Angel petted him, breathing in the earthy intermingled scents of sire and grandsire, which speak of home and family, and something deeper known only to demons. Blood.

Eventually, however, Spike rolls his head to the side and looks up, meeting the old man's dark gaze. Angel's expression is slack and inscrutable, and the fingers in Spike's hair still, but do not retreat. Drusilla is a fallen angel, ebony and ivory, posed in blissful repose against daddy's chest.

Their gazes clash and a thousand words are exchanged, but not one spoken. Without so much as a murmur, Spike climbs to his feet and retreats, thinking about Angel's Post-it note soul, and how terribly precarious is the line that they are walking. He clings to a terrible forbearance of doom, sorting through a myriad questions: what to say, how to say it, should he interfere, and how can he not?

That evening for the first time in two weeks, Spike goes out, leaving Drusilla in Angel's care.

**

* * *

**

**The Fight: October 29th 1997**

"OW, FUCK! Slayer you have a dirty mind!"

"Me! It's you who're all-all dirty, sick pervo guy! With my mom!"

That's Buffy, staying focused when the round facts don't fit the square misconceptions. The words coming out of her mouth don't sound like anything that 16-year-old Buffy could've come up with on her own. It's obvious that someone with a gutter-mind – probably Xander – has been putting ideas into her head.

"It was one date!" Spike shouted in his own defense. "I was a total gentleman!" The vampire scrambled to his hands and knees, retreating like a backward crab in order to gain some purchase.

Buffy reached down and grabbed for him. "Hands off, Slayer! HEY! Watch the sweater! It's cashmere!" Spike shouted. He threw an over handed punch into her face, knocking her off of him, and got to his feet.

Slayer and vampire squared off, trading exploratory blows. Their lithe figures dance together. The Slayer's movements are rough cause she hasn't learned the steps, and doesn't know her partner. Spike, though, is dancing from memory. He knows precisely how their bodies fit together – kick punch twirl dodge – poetry in motion more beautiful than the prose of Keats and Blake.

It's just like they've never stopped even though Spike knows that in this reality they're only just getting started. And oh, this might not be his girl but she still gets him hard. Buffy's small fists trying to beat him down into the ground clangs his bell: _Rang Rang Rang._

_Hello, Randy Vampire._

_So hard he hurts._

_

* * *

_

**Bored Vamp: October 13th, 1997**

Spike's entire body thrummed with coiled tension as he left the factory. Keeping cooped up in a bid to avoid the Slayer and the Scoobs has only added to his stir craziness. For a while he clung to the hope that someone from his own time & place would figure out that he's missing. He knows that wishes can be thwarted. It's been done before. He just needs an opportunity to lay his hands on Glinda's amulet, then she and this bollixed wish world are toast.

Trouble is that there's no sign of Glinda. Bitch hasn't even been by to gloat. And no one from his own world – if it even exists anymore at all – will have any reason to know something is wrong. If they even miss him – if anyone but Illyria even noticed – then they probably believe that he is dust.

Bigger trouble, Spike can't stay penned up and out of trouble forever. It's the antithesis of his nature. Logic dictates that he needs an outlet before he erupts. But Sunnydale has very few places where a vampire can hang out without attracting too much attention. Two to be more precise: The Bronze and Willy's. Spike chose the anonymity of The Bronze, knowing that at Willy's he'll attract attention.

Two weeks since the big AO and his assorted minions went poof. People, i.e. demons, have taken notice, especially since the Slayer has an airtight alibi for that night placing her at the high school. Sunnydale is full of inquisitive idiots, and sooner or later they'll connect the newest residents of the factory to the disappearance of the last.

Still, "Bored now" to quote a certain vampy redhead.

What is it they say? Idle hands are the Devil's playground. If that's true then idle Spike hands must be the equivalent of the Devil's Disneyland. So he opts for controlled trouble, rather like the reaction fueling a nuclear reaction. Atomic Spike.

Spike decided that he'd be better off getting involved in some sorta activity before his own restless energy gets the better of him. While at The Bronze he checks out the postings.

When Spike arrived, a familiar fella with black hair was in the process of pinning up a flyer on the bulletin board.

"Hey, Oz," Spike said without thinking. A second later he had to quash the impulse to slap a hand to his face. _Ballocks!_

"Hey." Willow's future boyfriend turned to look at Spike with quizzical regard. "I know you?" Oz's tone clearly implies: not. Cause bleached blondes with Cockney accents that look like Spike are so common in Sunnydale that they're forgettable.

"I'm a fan," Spike lied, fastening his gaze to the flyer. _What's the name of Oz's band again? Coyotes? Hyenas? Oh right, Dingoes!_

"Huge fan. Love Dingoes, baby eating is a blast too." Really, Spike's just saying that. Ankle nippers are barely a mouthful, hardly worth the bother. Eating infants was really more Dru's thing.

They made small talk. Rock n' Roll. Grunge. Alternative. R&B. Jazz. Spike was there for all of it, and discovers that Oz is surprisingly knowledgeable. Smart and witty. Funny, given all the times that Spike tried to kill the Scoobs, he never noticed before.

"You a musician?" Oz asked.

"My mum made me take piano lessons till I was twelve," Spike admitted, distantly shocked at the confession. In his entire undead existence he'd never owned to the upper-middle class upbringing that'd been his life. "I can read sheet music."

"The Dingoes are auditioning for a new drummer tomorrow," Oz said, flipping over a flyer and scratching out a barely legible address and time. He handed it to Spike who accepted with solid skepticism.

"I've never played drums," Spike pointed out. "I'd suck."

Oz smirked. "You've never really heard the Dingoes play, have you?"

"No, not really."

Spike doesn't throw the flyer away.

* * *

**The Fight: October 29th 1997**

"I get a lot of vampires trying to kill me trying to make a name for themselves. I'm used to that," Buffy said as they traded a round of punches.

"Sorry, pet, but I've already made a name for myself," Spike said. "Don't need you to cap my crown." Spike's movements are loose and relaxed. Playful. It is just like sparring with his Buffy sans the casual familiarity. Buffy is treating this like a death match against an unknown adversary. Deadly serious.

Of course, Buffy ignored him, kept right on jabbering. Typical bird, never letting a bloke get a word in edgewise.

"Stalking my friends and mom crosses the line! Normally, I'd just slay and forget you. But I'm gonna make this hurt. A lot." Buffy stepped forward and hauled off, clobbering Spike across the face with a haymaker punch, all of her immense Slayer strength focused into a few square inches of fist impacting his face.

True to her word: it hurt like a bitch. Spike stumbled back, wiping away blood on his sleeve. The cashmere sweater is ruined. Fuck, why did she always have to go for his nose? Spike has lost track of the number of times that Buffy had broken it over the years.

The Slayer is furious, and beneath that Spike could _smell_ fear. He can't say that he blames her, being scared for her mom. He'd feel the same way if be furious if a deranged, psychotic demon were stalking Joyce Summers.

The trouble is that there are deranged or psychotic killers to be had, at least not here. It wasn't the case _then_, and it's not so _now_. Both Angelus and Darla might've targeted Joyce, but Spike never did worse than sip the woman's cocoa and make chitchat. The time she hit him with the axe - he could've ripped out her throat. But he didn't. Spike relishes a fair, no holds barred fight between equals. He likes for his opponents to come at him, bringing everything they've got to the fight. There's no glory to be had in offing a sobbing girl bent over her dead mum's body.

"I'll repeat this one more time, slowly, so you can grasp my meaning," Spike said. The nose punch had provided him with better incentive to keep up his guard. "I haven't been stalking anyone, and I don't want to fight you, Slayer. I don't want to hurt you."

"Well, I want to hurt you." Buffy lunged. Spike managed to fend her off, blocking every incoming attack. The Slayer pressed hard at his defenses until Spike finally allowed her a small opening, letting her think that she'd gotten through. Buffy landed a couple punches.

"Doesn't mean I won't," Spike said. He shifted suddenly to game face and grabbed her head, bashing their foreheads together. The tactic left the blonde vampire in skull splitting pain, but Buffy was in worse shape. She staggered and gripped her head, groaning in pain, guard down.

Still, Spike hesitated to move in and finish it. His soddin' soul is full of pity for the 16-year-old Buffy who's so perky and innocent. Sure, the Master rattled her cage, but she defeated old bat-face, and must believe the worst to be past. She hasn't yet imagined enemies who are bigger, meaner, tougher. Angelus hasn't ripped out her heart, and Glory hasn't destroyed her confidence.

Over the course of the last month, Spike has given the matter plenty of thought. If things had gone as they should have, then he should have defeated Buffy on Parent-Teacher night. He doesn't think that it is pure ego and self-flattery to think that the night was a turning point for the Slayer. It must have destroyed her illusions, and shaken her out of her complacency. Because of him she became a better fighter.

The obvious and inevitable conclusion is that they must meet and fight, and he has to win. Necessary evil if the Slayer is gonna toughen up into a better warrior. And as much as he despises the thought of hurting her, the worry that Buffy will wind up being a weaker Slayer is greater. Weak Slayers die young.

Buffy staggered, starting to recover, and Spike made his decision. Time to finish it. But before he could step up, Buffy managed to throw another punch, a verbal one this time.

"I know who you are," Buffy announced.

Spike's heart leapt into his throat. She stopped him in his tracks. Finally, someone has figured out that he's a Marty McVampire outta time and place? Is a brassy little slayer willing to set aside her rage and help Spike get Back to the Future?

**

* * *

**

**Band Vamp: October 14th, 1997 thru October 28th 1997**

On a lark, Spike went to the Dingoes audition. He out performed the other three would-be drummers who showed, beating them not only on speed, but raw talent. Twelve decades of musical adoration (and vampire reflexes) had finally paid off.

"I joined a band," Spike told Angel.

"You what!" exclaimed Angel who was clearly speaking with Pod!Spike again.

"Dingoes Ate My Baby. Got practice three nights a week, and maybe the occasional gig on weekends," Spike continued, blithely ignoring Angel's consternation. Let the old man scowl. Spike finds the whole matter highly amusing and oddly pleasing. _He's in a band. How cool is that?_

"Dingoes ate your baby," Angel said, frowning hard. "Is that...?" He trailed off, speechless.

"Don't worry, practice is over by 9, so it shouldn't cut into your Slayer snogging time," Spike said, and walked off to go check on Dru.

Over the next couple weeks, Spike got chummy with Oz, Devon, and Stacy, the androgynous keyboardist whose mixed pheromones confound even the vampire's acute olfactory senses.

Devon and Cordelia have an on again/off-again _thing_ going on, so Spike flies onto Queen C's radar. Within range of his vampire hearing, she signaled him out to one of her Cordettes as "Salty retro-70's Eurotrash-goodness. Don't you just _love_ those killer cheekbones?"

During one of her off-agains with Devon Cordelia cornered Spike after practice, forcing him to fend her off with weak protestations. "Sorry, but you're not my type, love." _Fuck, he is tempted. But she is more trouble than she's worth. He's not gonna shag Angel's future One True Love._

"Are you gay? Because any guy that doesn't want me must be homosexual," Cordelia demanded, and from the way her brain is working behind those gorgeous eyes, it is clear that she's already made up her mind.

"I-" gasped Spike whose normally astute linguistic ability is suddenly stumped. Cordelia logic runs wild; Spike logic is perplexed.

"Hey, this is the 90's and it's totally cool if you're gay," Cordelia continued. "I have a rainbow sticker, and my cousin is gay. At least we think. It's one of those things..." And she's off, a verbal locomotive that cannot be stopped. Spike doesn't even try to correct her.

Word gets around. Spike is gay. Spike is a Nancy. It's so far from the truth that it both annoys and amuses the hell out him. Feeling perverse, he deliberately applies eyeliner and paints his nails black for the first time in years. Spike buys a leather collar and matching bracelet covered in metal studs, and has his tongue pierced.

Angel's reaction is priceless. Pure confounded bafflement. The old man's brain is doing a slow melt down. Pod!Spike has taken over, eradicating any trace of the Spike that Angel once knew and despised, leaving Grandpa Fart mystified.

Angel still doesn't get that the key to remaining vital is adaptation. Once every few decades it pays to reinvent oneself. This time Spike is doing so with his soul as part of the equation. Before he's never had the time to really incorporate the soul into his identity. There was always another emergency, anther crisis, another big fight. Now he's got nothing but free time.

**

* * *

**

**The Fight: October 29th 1997**

"I know who you are," Buffy announced.

Spike's heart leapt into his throat. She stopped him in his tracks. Finally, someone has figured out that he's a Marty McVampire outta time and place? Is a brassy little slayer willing to set aside her rage and help Spike get Back to the Future?

"That so?" he said cautiously in case he's wrong. "Funny cause I remember introducing myself when we danced." It's a fake out. A bluff. The Slayer is just trying to get under his skin. There's no way that she could have found out.

Unless Angel's got an even bigger mouth than Spike usually credits him with...

"Right before you started stalking my mom," Buffy snapped. As usual, the slayer has a one-track mind, and is able to completely disregard the nonviolent nature of their first encounter. She doesn't care that he hasn't laid a finger upon Joyce's precious head in spite of _weeks_ of opportunities.

As always Buffy's narrow and selective perception annoys the shit out of Spike. Isn't fair that the Slayer always casts everything he does in the worst possible light.

"Who the hell am I then?" he demanded.

"William the Bloody aka Spike, known for torturing his victims with a railroad spike!" Buffy said it with a flourish like a magician pulling the rabbit outta the hat. TA-DA!

**Oh.**

Spike went weak with relief. Not only the wrong hat, but the wrong bloody rabbit. I_t's not as he thought. The slayer is predictably clueless._

They have stopped circling and are standing squared off against one another, talking almost casually. It is **all wrong.** Buffy is taking her cues from him, which encourages familiarity and casualness, _not kill kill kill die die die_ heat & hatred.

Right about now he should be playing the role of cocky braggart, openly mocking Buffy's primness and uptightness. He should be trying to impress her right proper with his **oh** **so** **scary** prowess. The trouble is that Spike is ashamed of what he's done. He doesn't wallow in a pigsty of guilt like Angel, but he can no longer brag about his kills.

He is soul sick, unable to bring himself to say the lines. There are no excuses he can make; no explanations or apologies that cover it. And unlike Angel, it didn't even occur to him to try.

"Oh yeah, those were the days. Before that I conducted a campaign of verbal torture against my peer group," Spike said, adopting self-denigrating humor because it's easier. Sixteen-year-old Buffy won't get it anyway. She lacks the reflective capacity of his Buffy.

"Listening to you talk is grating enough that **I** can believe it," Buffy snarked. Then she spun in with a kick/punch combo, which Spike blocked and countered. They were fighting again, which helped alleviate some of Spike's internal angst.

Spike smacked her back. "And here you haven't even heard my poetry."

"You've killed two Slayers. Bet you thought I was gonna be your third," she taunted. Not up to her usual standard of one-liners. Spike wondered if this entire encounter has thrown off her game as much as it has his.

"Actually, I've been trying to avoid you, case you haven't noticed. If I'd wanted your attention then I'd have come roaring into town and caused a commotion. Threatened some innocent bystanders, drawn you out. How'd you find out?"

That threw her for a second. "I read. Books."

Spike snorted. "Riiight," he drawled. "You mean to say that your Watcher looked me up."

**Dressed to the Nines: October 29th 1997**

That morning, Spike finally plowed his way through the end of The Bridges of Madison County, which redefined 'tedium' for the immortal vampire. He'd been thinking about Joyce's invitation to book club for the last couple weeks, weighing the risk of running into Buffy versus his desire to see Joyce again.

Finally, he came down on the side of chance taking. Because of his involvement with the Dingoes, he's already risked eventual contact with Buffy and the rest of the Scoobs, which might very well be inevitable anyway. If he's going to stay in Sunnydale then he can't avoid them forever. Small town; small hellmouth.

Besides. What are the odds of running into Buffy in a **bookstore**?

Spike figured he should look decent for this book club thing. (He's not calling it a date. Oh no, never a date because that'd be _wrong._) In the interests of looking respectable, Spiked nicked a credit card and purchased a nice pair of slacks, a white dress shirt, and a cashmere sweater along with some nice dress shoes from Macy's.

Spike looks damn good. Presentable. He had his hair cut. He's even wearing underwear. _The weather in hell must be changing._

While Spike fussed with his shirt collar, Angel watched from the leather armchair. Drusilla sat curled at his feet, playing with some paper dolls that Spike brought her. Miss Edith and a ring of her associates sat nearby observing the scene as it unfolded.

"Is it true that you're gay?" Angel asked, the question torn from him.

Spike turned to stare at the great poof. What the hell sort of question is that to a vampire? And how can _Angel_, Grand Dame of the Fairies, even ask _him_ that?

"You shouldn't go listening to gossip, Peaches. And don't go getting your hopes up. I'm taking out a lady," Spike replied, sneering at Angel. _Remembering those thick fingers combing through his hair._

"The White Queen's Mum is watering her violets," Drusilla moaned. One of the paper dolls has murdered and decapitated another.

"Is my collar straight?" Spike demanded, fussing with the damn thing further, which seemed to get it messed up more.

Angel sighed. "Come here." It is a command.

Grudgingly, Spike came. He lowered himself enough so that Angel could adjust his collar, which the old man did with a quick, practiced gesture. Angel looked Spike over, inspecting the goods before giving a curt nod. "You'll do."

"Gee, thanks," Spike snapped. "You okay staying in with Dru? I'll be gone two, maybe three hours, tops."

"We'll be fine."

"I'd like to 'ave a tea party, I would," Drusilla piped up. "Miss Edith shall preside o'er the festivities..."

"Have a good time, precious," Spike said, bending to press a kiss to Drusilla's forehead, which she wiped off.

**

* * *

**

**Date With a Slayer's Mum: October 29th 1997**

A frumpy woman played hostess/moderator at the book club. She had short dark hair cut in a pageboy that looked like a wire bristle brush had brutalized the ends. Her name is Jane. Joan. Jean. Something.

Spike sat next to Joyce who smiled and greeted him with sincere pleasure. It is weird, and Spike feels special, because no one really cares about him all that much. Not even Angel who is more wanting of company than the actual folks doing the keeping.

During introductions, Spike gave his name as "William", because it felt right. This is a group of adults. Not kids, not vampires. Granted, it's mostly women, somewhat older birds who've been through divorce or some other tragedy that's left them alone in life. Some of them are married, and might as well be divorced, better off from their tired faces. Spike suspects that most of them have never even been properly shagged, good and hard, reduced to sobbing ecstasy. It makes him wonder if he should pass out a few pity fucks.

"Tonight begins a new literary topic: Love," said Jane/Joan/Jean. (Spike decides to settle on 'Jean'.)

"It begins a six week study of love's changing role and portrayal in literature down through the ages. But first we're going to do a round robin and gain a more personal perspective. As we go around the circle, I'd like for everyone to offer a metaphor for love."

There are only two other men present, both middle-aged wankers on the make. One of them keeps staring at Spike, setting the vampire's teeth on edge. Spike gave the other bloke a stony stare until the human finally looked away, clearly intimidated.

Most of the love metaphors offered up were yawn worthy, so Spike zoned out. The vampire sat slouched forward in his chair, hands between spread knees, picking the paint off of one of his nails.

Finally, the circle came around to Joyce, and Spike paid attention.

"Love is a work of art. You slave over it and nurture it, pour tears and worry into it, knowing that if you give in too little then the piece is never complete, and if you give to much you risk ruining it."

Joyce is talking about Buffy, of course, her life's greatest work of art. Of love. Spike nodded his approval, and made a subtle but rude gesture toward the asshole who was staring again.

"William, since you're new and male-" Jean along with every other woman in the group has noticed that Spike is Sex On Legs. "-I must say that I'm looking forward to your perspective on what love means to a man." Jean smiled encouragement.

Spike exhaled heavily, stifling a growl of annoyance. Lovely. Love left him as baffled as the next bloke. How could anyone living or dead have anything unique to say that hadn't already been said by the poets and bards of the ages?

Spike, being Spike, said the first thing that came into his head. "Being a man is being a monster in the dark. You're going along without a care in the world, happy as a lark, then along comes love – in your throat, in your gut, drowning you - making you weak, making you grieve, making you repent your evil, nasty ways. Love bitch slaps a soul into the monster, so all that's left to do is change. To be a better man."

Women in the group are stunned and scandalized, probably by his language. Joyce beams. Jean gushes about his rare insight. Both of the other blokes roll their eyes, and Spike can't help agreeing with them. He is full of shit.

Afterward, Spiked insisted upon walking Joyce home. She tried to demur, saying that it's fine and only a ten-minute walk. Every place in Sunnydale is a ten-minute walk. And there are at least a hundred ways to die that only require a couple seconds. Spike persisted and escorted Joyce home, making pleasant small talk along the way.

**

* * *

**

**The Fight: October 29th 1997**

Spike snorted. "Riiight," he drawled. "You mean to say that your Watcher looked me up."

"Are you calling me dumb?"

"Not like I'm making fun of your name," he retorted, declining to answer that last charge. "Let's finish this, alright? I need to get home." Angel must be getting hoarse.

Buffy noded, grim and determined, and Spike thought that his quiet confidence had shaken her more than any amount of noise he ever made. They squared off again, Buffy drawing a stake.

Spike has no doubt about who will win. He has five years of dancing with Buffy under his belt. He was tough enough to take her the first time around. Since then he has sparred with numerous Slayers, Buffy included. He has exchanged blows with a Godking, reinventing his style in order to get past even Illyria's formidable guard. He has defeated Angel, and faced countless – seemingly insurmountable - opponents and challenges.

Spike is no longer an exuberant soulless demon, killing for the pure joy of it, existing only in the moment, never for the past or the future. He is old and weary, jaded and lonely. But he hasn't lost his edge.

When Buffy charged him, Spike didn't get out of her way. This time there is no ground given, no preliminary sparring, no foreplay. Hard and fast he landed five brutal blows to Buffy's head and face. She got off a couple good punches, but his knowledge of her defense is too thorough.

During the scuffle, she lost her stake, which went clattering away across the asphalt. This time they are fighting for real, vampire versus Slayer, life or death, and there are no witty quips, no zingy one-liners.

Seeing his opening, Spike danced in past Buffy's guard, driving home one mean punch after another. Then he delivered a spin/kick combo that knocked the Slayer back into the alley wall. Before she recovered, Spike dove in and grabbed hold, pinning one of her arms against her back, smashing her flat against the asphalt. He put a knee into the middle of her back to hold her in place, and used his free hand to force her head to the side so that her throat was exposed.

The only sound in the alley is the hard gasp of fear every time the Slayer sucks down a breath. Her heart is thundering in Spike's ears, and her pulse point is jumping to meet his lips. His gaze locks onto that single point, and he realizes distantly that he is in game face, fangs barred, lusting after the slayer's creamy throat.

They remain locked together like that for a long time, Buffy suffering the burn of humiliation and vulnerability that accompany defeat, coming to terms with the full measure of her mortality. She is thinking about her friends, Giles, and her mom; how they will feel when her body is found drained and dumped in some dirty alleyway.

Spike is torn between the nearly irresistible impulse to bite, and sheer terror that he won't be able to find the strength to pull away from her. Fuck, he hopes that this is worth it to her, that Buffy burns a terrible determination into her soul that no one will ever do this to her again. _Never again. _He wants her to live with that mantra branded on her soul. _Because he is going to be having nightmares about this for weeks._

"Can I let you go?" Spike rasped.

Buffy's throat leapt as she swallowed. "What?" she said dumbly.

"Can I let you go now?" Spike repeated. "Could've killed you. Didn't. I have a soul but I'm still a vampire, and it's not easy holding you like this when my every instinct is screaming to rip your throat out. So can I **please** let you go and back off before I do something that we'll both regret?"

Buffy gave a curt nod, and Spike released her abruptly, throwing himself off of her and away. He stumbled and staggered as if he'd been on the one defeated and held smashed against the ground. Nausea churns his gut, swimming toward his head, and _Oh God, he's going to be sick._

Buffy approached Spike from behind, shaky steps, and he half expects her to ram a stake into his back. He made no move to evade her or resist, leaning against a wall for support, breathing hard as he struggles not to spew his guts.

"Why couldn't you just leave me alone, Slayer? I wasn't hurting anyone. If you'd bothered to check you'd know that. No one around me missing, or dead. But _no_, always gotta assume the worst, don'tcha?"

Sixteen-year-old Buffy takes one thing away from his yammering. "You have a soul?"

Spike's breath hitched, and he shut up. He rolled his head back to look up at her, standing behind him. No stake, surprisingly. "Well, yeah." He lacks even the spirit to throw out some appropriately scathing snark about Miss Percepto's obtuseness. But wait.

"Didn't I mention that?"

"No, you didn't," Buffy said, firmly enough that he believes her. "Geez, why didn't you just say so? That makes you one of the good guys," Buffy said with infuriatingly simplistic logic that Spike will spend _weeks_ trying to wrap his head around.

Just like that, he goes from being a scumy, pervy, mom-stalking villain to good guy. Spike has never even imagined a Buffy capable of viewing things in such black-and-white terms. His Buffy's world is oblique and complex, full of gray shades and ambiguity.

This Buffy is offering him an encouraging smile and a pat on the back, which lasts for precisely One Pat. She is obviously leery about touching him after that crushing defeat, but the slayer's sense of right and wrong is mammoth.

"I'm sorry I attacked you, but Hello? You need to tell people that you have a soul! You can't just expect me to discern from the lack of dead bodies not piling up in your closet!"

"Right, sorry 'bout that. Silly me, not wearing my 'Got Soul' button tonight. Must've left it on my other shirt," Spike drawled, beginning to recover just a bit.

"Did I ruin your sweater?"

"No damage done that won't wash out," Spike said, watching as she withdraws from physical proximity with him. _It's a lie. Tonight she will stand under a steaming hot shower and try to wash away his touch, and the damage he has wrought. She will fail. Some things never come clean again._

It was his turn to apologize. "Er, sorry I kicked your ass?" Spike winced. Okay, so that didn't come out quite right. "I mean-" What did he mean? It wasn't like him to be tongue-tied or a loss for words. Where had his Spike Glibness gone?

"Don't take it too hard, alright? In a couple years you're gonna be kickin' my ass all over the place."

Buffy stared at him. "Right," Spike said, wiping sweaty hands on his pants. "Time for me to be going."

Buffy appeared to be grappling for something to say into the awkward post-fight silence. "Do you know Angel?" Buffy finally asked, lighting up like a Christmas tree as she thinks of her vampy boy-toy.

Spike winced. _So not his Buffy._

"Yeah, I know Angel." He took several steps, beginning to retreat.

"Oh!" Buffy huffed. "Angel is **so **in the doghouse! Being all cryptic and non-forthcoming again. Is that a **thing** with you vampires-?"

A garbage can down a side alley clattered, briefly catching the Slayer's attention. She looked, but it was only a stray dog, and when she turned back Spike is gone.

Spike peered down from the roof of the nearby building he had scaled, watching as Buffy glanced around, looking for him. She said something beneath her breath, but even with his vampire hearing he only picks up three words. "-just like Angel-"

No, no, he is _nothing_ like Angel, but only time will reveal that truth.

Spike says nothing of the fight to Angel. Not a word of warning, not a caution or an insult, because speaking on the matter would reveal Spike's complicity. His guilt. The near-fatalness of the fight. This second time around, how will his actions influence what Buffy will become? By changing things has he buggered it all?

_Not one word._

End.


End file.
